Archive for January, 2011

Transferring PhotoOne Prices To StudioCloud

January 31st, 2011

StudioCloud has really put a lot of work into making the transition from PhotoOne as easy as possible. If you’ve been following along since I decided to switch from PhotoOne to StudioCloud, you’ve probably been just as impressed as I have about how easy it was to install the StudioCloud desktop app, transfer customers from PhotoOne, and transfer appointments from PhotoOne.

The whole process has been a lot easier than I would have expected up to this point. Since we haven’t fully transitioned yet, I have a feeling there will still be some bumps along the way. At a minimum, we’ll have to deal with using both systems simultaneously for a while because the fi[...]

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Posted in Photography Product Reviews | 2 Comments »

Transferring PhotoOne Appointments To StudioCloud

January 30th, 2011

After you’ve installed StudioCloud and transferred PhotoOne customers to StudioCloud, it’s time to transfer your PhotoOne appointments to your StudioCloud calendar. If you’ve already followed my first tutorial on importing data into StudioCloud, the whole process will be very similar, so I’ll save you from long detailed explanations to save time. If you’re wanting additional information on any of the steps, please let me know. Also, Larissa mentioned that you guys may prefer video tutorials, so if that’s the case, just let me know, and I’ll consider doing that for the next StudioCloud tutorial. It’s all about keeping you guys happy.

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Posted in Photography Product Reviews | No Comments »

Setting Your Focus Point On A Canon 5D Mark II

January 22nd, 2011

There’s nothing worse than hearing your camera beep to indicate it’s locked on and focused, then to find out you missed the shot completely because you were actually intending to focus on something else that what the camera chose to focus on. Usually your camera is pretty smart in picking what to focus on, but if you’re anything like us, usually isn’t good enough. From the image above, you can see that the 5D Mark II has a total of 9 focus points represented by boxes. This is what you’ll see if you look through your viewfinder. We’re going to look at how to tell your 5D Mark II exactly where to focus. Plus if you have another Canon camera, these same step[...]

Posted in Tips And Tutorials For Photographers | 31 Comments »

Advantages To Being A Part-Time Photographer

January 18th, 2011

If running a photography business full-time makes you drool just thinking about the possibility, you’ll probably want to wipe your face, then let’s have a chat before you decide that going full-time tomorrow is your best bet at success. If you’ve got a 9-5 (ok, I know it’s realistically more like 8 to 6 for most of you guys), you may have it better than you think. There are plenty of reasons to stick with your day job for a while – at least until you get your photography business ready to catch you when you jump.

Test The Waters With your photography being only a part time job, you’ll feel more free to experiment than if you had made the move t[...]

Posted in The Business Of Photography | 22 Comments »

Wedding Photography On Overpaid Jobs List

January 17th, 2011

I ran across an old article from 2003 (read the article here) where wedding photography is listed as one of the most overpaid jobs in the US. While the article is dated, I can tell you that same attitude still exists. We hear fairly frequently at weddings a conversation that goes like this: Random guy – “You make $2500 a wedding?” Me – “Not really. We don’t get to keep all that money.” (Statement ignored, dollar signs still in random guy’s eyes). Random guy – “And you do a wedding a weekend?” Me – “Yea, on average it’s about a wedding a weekend. There’s slow season where we don’t shoot a lo[...]

Posted in The Business Of Photography | 17 Comments »

Portrait Professional Studio 9 Review

January 16th, 2011

I did this review of Portrait Professional Studio 9 as a video review. I go over the basic functionality walking through editing a single image from start to finish.

Visit the portrait professional site online at www.portraitprofessional.com .

Review part 1…

Review part 2…

Posted in Photography Product Reviews | 4 Comments »

2011 State Of The Photography Industry

January 14th, 2011

If you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few years, you might not have noticed that the photography industry has gone through some major changes in the last few years. The digital revolution and slow economy have both been major players in many of the changes. With 2011 just starting out, it’s a good time to get the pulse of the photography world. If you can get a good grasp on where the photo industry is at, and where it’s headed, you can make better choices in planning where you want to go as a studio. This is by no means a comprehensive list of trends, but they’re the changes that we’ve noticed based on our experience with consumers and photogra[...]

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Posted in The Business Of Photography | 7 Comments »

Photography Flash Websites And SEO

January 11th, 2011

If you’ve been to a photographer convention recently, you’ve undoubtedly been bombarded with talk about promoting your business on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, and your website. Great! More tasks to add to the list. Since your studio may finally be slowing down for a few months, you may have some time to invest in your online presence. I’d recommend not overwhelming yourself with too much at once. Pick one thing and do it well. The one thing that we’re going to be focusing on today is your website.

Many of you will be considering a flash website to promote your studio. While flash websites do tend to be more eye-catching, there are some issues with S[...]

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Posted in Marketing For Photographers | 8 Comments »

Transferring PhotoOne Customers To StudioCloud

January 10th, 2011

After you’ve finished installing StudioCloud, you’re on to getting data into the system to make it useful. If you don’t already have studio management software that you’re upgrading from, you can enter the data manually. At our studio, we already had PhotoOne installed, but we decided to switch over to StudioCloud after PhotoOne was bought out. Hopefully with this walkthrough, transferring the clients will be pretty easy. These steps may look slightly different depending on the version of PhotoOne you’re using. The screenshots were from 9.4.305c, which is what we’re running. Also, I’m on a Vista system, so that could make a small difference [...]

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Posted in Photography Product Reviews | 2 Comments »

How To Trigger Off-Camera Canon Flashes

January 8th, 2011

If you’ve read my wedding photography tips to get amazing images, you’ll remember that I talked about adding off-camera flash. There are a number of ways to trigger off-camera flashes, but in this post, I’ll be covering how to use Canon’s built-in infrared system so you can get off camera flash without spending a fortune.

Master Flash In order to use Canon’s infrared triggering system, you’ll need a flash that acts as a master to tell other flashes to go off. Since you’re on a budget (who isn’t?), I’d recommend getting a Canon 550 EX Flash. It’s not the latest and greatest, but at the time I’m writing this, you ca[...]

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Posted in Tips And Tutorials For Photographers | 7 Comments »

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